Nikon 17-55 for Distance

[diane_madura]

Hi everyone. I keep reading that the Nikon 17-55 f2.8 is better for close range

subjects, not that great for distance. Bjorn Rorslett says that as well. What

exactly is wrong with distance subjects when using that lens?

[walterh]

You must be reading the wrong places :-) ?? ... not that great for distance ?? This lens is excellent for a zoom and compares well with primes. The optimum may be in the near to mid-range distance but a little less than spectacular is certainly better than "not that great".

 

Keep reading better sources and take pictures with the 17-55. There is nothing wrong with this lens near infinity.

[ShunCheung]

After reading Bjorn's review, I checked mine. I do find it sharper at 10 feet or so than at infinity, but that is not to say it is bad at infinity. Additionally, at 17mm, the edge of the frame is not very good at f2.8. This is a great event photography lens, e.g. weddings. If I shoot landscape around 17mm, I would use the 12-24mm/f4 instead.

 

Unfortunately, I dropped that lens once while inside a padded camera bag. It had a bent lens mount, and Nikon USA fixed it; it is now slightly uneven on the two sides. I have since tested two other samples; one is even a bit worse than mine and another sample from Nikon is about the same as mine.

[eric friedemann]

That the lens is optimized for event shooting doesn't make it a dog at distances. I just walked out and took this shot hand-held on the golf course next to my home. I set the 17-55mm to f/8.0, and the row of homes is at least 150 yards away.<div></div>

[eric friedemann]

This 100% enlargement shows good detail even in this shadowed area of the image.<div></div>

[james_symington1]

I routinely use it for landscapes - that's almost all I shoot - and it is just fine. It may well be better at shorter distances but it stacks up just fine against all the other Nikon lenses I have at infinity.

 

I did a mini test the other day which you might like to look at and the results are here:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00P9dy

[ronald_olsen]

I bought this lens after reading all the glowing reviews that it was as sharp as a prime. Sorry, nope. Four days ago I was shooting with it in China for my book project, and noticed I was at 50 mm. I quickly switched to the little $100 50 mm f1.8 in my bag, and it was like everything suddenly came into sharp focus. Looks like there may be some sample variation, as other people seem to be thrilled with this lens; in my case, it's not quite what I expected when I bought it. I was thinking of buying the new 24-70, but after the experience I had with the 17-55 and the money outlay it entails, I would borrow and test one extensively first outdoors, not in the limited environs of the store.

 

I am not saying that it's a BAD lens, it's good, but I wouldn't rate my copy much, if any, higher than my 18-70 for sharpness. Yes, you do have the f2.8 which is nice, and the color rendition is better. The downside comparitively is the size of it, the cost, and the slightly lower zoom range. It fits the niche of a walking-around or event lens adequately but for landscape-type shots, I would recommend several prime lenses instead.

[jose_angel]

I tested mine on my previous D200, and found that the only lenses in my bag that outperformed the 17-55 were a 50/1.8 AFD and a Micro-Nikkor 55/2.8 AiS. Longer end of zooms never had been so good, thought. As wider the prime, the better results in comparison for the 17-55.

 

It was also much better than my 24-85 and 28-105 I still have, at the same focals.

 

I repeat, on the D200 I sold months ago. It was not a high precision test.

[john_lai3]

You must be crazy to say that the 17-55mm would not be rated higher than the 18-70mm... Maybe you got a bad copy? I had the 18-70mm (sold it recently) and 17-55mm, 17-55mm is a much sharper lens. The only downside is the weight but then who really cares.

[elliot1]

The 17-55 is a wonderful lens, but it is not a perfect lens. If you are doing event photography, I highly recommend it. If you want to only shoot landscapes, there are better choices.

 

I compared the 17-55 to the 18-55 at infinity a long while back. Here is an extreme crop as well as DXO corrected crops.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/6149199&size=lg

 

I am not suggesting that the 18-55 is better than or a replacement for the 17-55. I would not shoot an even with the 18-55 lens. But the 17-55 would not be my number one choice for landscape photography although the slight 'imperfections' are probably only visible if you pixel peep.

 

The 17-55 lens focuses quickly and accurately even in low light, gives excellent color, contrast and sharpness. What more could you ask for?

[davidgarth]

There is quite a lot of sample-to-sample variation in this lens. My first one was just fair. I exchanged it for another one that is really sharp corner to corner. Yes, it's a little sharper at medium distances, but, it's still very sharp at infinity. It's also best about f4.5 and doesn't improve much stopping down more. It's obviously optimized for wide-open or near wide-open shooting at 8-20 foot distances. But, that shouldn't lead you to believe that it's not darn good in other situations.

[ronald_olsen]

John, I may be crazy, yes, but for carrying 220 pounds of flash gear around China, not for making the above statements.

 

I didn't trash the 17-55 as a dog. I said that it was a good lens for event photography, but that there were better alternatives for landscape-style pictures (primes).

 

The 18-70 was worse than a dog when I bought it; it was a mangy, dirty, abused stray of a dog, unuseable for what I needed it to do. I sent it to Nikon to see if anything could be done, and it came back much, much sharper than when bought new. Sharp enough that it is the equal of the 17-55 that I had decided to buy as a replacement. I stated in my post that there may be some sample variation, so yes indeed the 17-55 that I got may not be the equal of others that are out there, and my 18-70 may be exceptionally good. Crazy ? Is it crazy to believe that the best copy of the 18-70 is as good as the worst copy of the 17-55 ?

 

For the original poster, I would say get several opinions like you have here, and then make a decision. Looks like most people are quite happy with this lens, so the odds are in favor of you getting a good copy. If possible, I would go and test the lens that you will actually be buying first. Good luck.

[jim_foley4]

My 17-55mm is very good. It is only very very slightly worse than the 50 f/1.8 (non-D) and actually better than the 50 f/1.4 D that I have. The 17-55 is a very versital and very sharp lens IMHO.

[walterh]

I just pulled out a sample "distance" image from a hand held shot using a 17-55 f2.8 on a D200. You might get better results from a tripod but for me the main application for this lens is hand held. Do you get much more from a 50mm AFD f1.8?<div></div>

[walterh]

Here the 100% crop<div></div>

[lex_jenkins]

Let's try to keep the hyperbole to a dull roar, folks. I'm not sure "you must be crazy" would be a useful rhetorical device by any standard for debate, apart from usenet.

 

In my experience, it's not unusual for wide angles and zooms, especially midrange zooms (wide to moderate tele), and macro lenses, to be better at short ranges than toward infinity focus. In some cases this is probably a deliberate choice by the lens manufacturer based on the most common anticipated usage of a lens.

 

The 35-105mm (equivalent) zoom on my old Olympus C-3040Z P&S digicam is outstanding for macros and distances out to around 50 yards. But it's not so good for landscapes and distant architectural detail. Not a big deal, since I don't often use this camera for detailed distance shots and I'd bet that's what Olympus was counting on.

 

I've seen similar performance with a couple of Vivitar Series 1 28-90 varifocals (on Olympus and Canon SLRs) and the 18-70 DX on my D2H. In the 35-70mm focal range, the older 35-70/2.8D AF Nikkor offers better resolution of fine detail at long distances than the 18-70 DX (from 35-70mm) on the D2H. The 24-120 VR also offered slightly better resolution of fine detail at long distances than the 18-70 DX (within comparable focal ranges).

 

Unfortunately stopping down doesn't always help with this problem. Either a lens performs well when focused toward infinity or it doesn't. And in some cases the differences are relatively less significant. Unless I was printing larger than native resolution from my D2H, I'm not sure I'd even see the differences.

[juan_parm_nides]

Distance is a very relative terminology, I mean, short distance?, medium distance? or long distance?. If you want a sharp lens working in a long distance the 17-55 is not your lens, but in its range it is an excepcional lens, as you can see in the crops above.

 

Then, it depends again if you are going to use in a FX or DX camera, because results are not the same.

 

Anyway, my Nikkor 17-55 f:2,8 is a very sharp lens even at the longest focal, 55mm.

[diane_madura]

Walter, your example is quite impressive. In Eric's photo, the details are not quite as easy to see because of the lighting. Thank you everyone for taking time to share.

[ronald_olsen]

Wow, there are some good 17-55's out there. Mine is not so good :( Here is a comparison between my 17-55 and 50 mm f1.8. This is my first time posting a photo, so please forgive if I make a mistake. I would like to show how good the 18-70 is for comparison but alas I have lent it to my assistant in China.<div></div>

[ronald_olsen]

50 mm lens at f4. I use both lenses about two stops down.

[ronald_olsen]

17-55 at f5.6. I hope you can see the difference. I crop photos down to 400 pixels wide. It's just plain ugly compared to the 50. No contest whatsoever.

[james_symington1]

Ronald,

 

I've had two Nikon 17-55mm lenses, at different times, and the second one was quite a bit better than the first. You may want to get your local Nikon service centre to give it an overhaul/adjustment as they may well be able to squeeze extra performance out of it. But beating a 50mm prime that is stopped down is probably impossible and that is just part of the compromise of using zooms.

[walterh]

James is quite right. A prime lens has fewer restrictions is its optical design than a zoom lens. Therefore a prime is potentially better than a zoom lens, if the same level of technology is used. There are several reasons why we see today quite a few new zoom lenses that reach the image quality of primes in one part of the zoom range. One reason is the increase in computing power that allows for better optimization of the many parameters in optical design. One other reason is the availability of better glass and coatings. In contrast there is very little room for improvement of "standard" primes like 35mm 50mm 80mm etc.

 

Fine mechanics and quality control are very expensive today and this is the reason why we see sample variation. In wide angle zoom lenses mechanical tolerances are extremely small and I never buy a wide angle zoom (even not a wide prime) without testing. Again in contrast the mechanical quality of the 50mm AFD f1.8 is very poor but a little misalignment does not hurt the IQ of this lens as much as it would hurt the 17-55mm lens.

[mmene]

I own 17-55/2.8 just a few days. This is a comparison with my beloved 50/1.8. Shooting with D300 at 1250/f5.6 at 200iso, photoshoped with CS3 from NEF. Both were set to 100 clarity.

[fhmillard]

I use the 17-55 as my main lens. As noted here and elsewhere it is not without shortcomings, especially distortion and edge sharpness at 17mm.

But for landscapes it is great. I find 24mm is a good fl at f7 to f10 (aperture priority) on my D200, taking several panned shots for stitching (PSCS3 photo merge does a great job with better frame blending than CS2).

 

I experimented with this lens in July 07 on the vast panoramic landscapes of MT. Evans, CO elevation 14,264 ft., taking hand held shots , some with 5 frames. They are in my portfolio, if you care to see the results.